Meanwhile, Annie befriends the technically-minded Katerina Donlan, whose parents both teach at the Court. The two serve as foils for each other: Kat's energetic, outgoing personality plays off Annie's initial reserve, which enables much of their character development.

The comic is also publishedin hardcover form.note For those interested in minutia, this isn't the first print version of GC. Back in 2006, Tom published the first seven chapters as a paperback through Lulu.com's print-on-demand service. This is the reason for the "Treatise" page at the end of Chapter 7. This paperback was discontinued months before "Orientation" was announced. So far, the volumes include:

The bonus comic City Face has its own article. Also, Siddell has published two side stories, "Annie in the Forest" and "Traveller", detailing a bit of Annie's time living in the forest and Paz's trip home after her first year at the Court, respectively. A third side story, "Coyote!", is upcoming.

Gunnerkrigg Court contains examples of:

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Setting

Academy of Adventure: Antimony introduces the story with the tale of her second shadow and soon finds a vengeful ghost at the bottom of a gorge, from which she is rescued by her friend's homemade anti-gravity plane. When her classmates gather in their spare time, they recount stories of their own harrowing adventures exploring the Court.

Aerith and Bob: There are people named Surma, Antimony, Gamma and Zeta and Sir Eglamore as well as Jack, Janet, James and Andrew Smith, whose magic power is to make things orderly.

All Myths Are True: According to Jones, Coyote did place the stars in the sky, and so did every other mythological being attributed this task, but she also claims the stars have also always been there since long before Coyote and co. existed.

Anachronism Stew: The fashion of the Court in Jeanne's day as conjured by Ayilu, the fairy who can manipulate memories. The background characters don't matter as long as Ayilu can make Jeanne believe everything is normal — otherwise they'd all be dead.

Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: In The Realm of the Dead, Antimony and Mort appear to see a land of infinite majesty, wonder and surprise. Kat and the audience, meanwhile, see a cheap haunted house populated by about three people.

Record Keeper: So you use that name as an incantation with the scryer. Kat: This Rolodex? Record Keeper: Then you summon the records from the Vault of Memory. Kat: You mean this cabinet? There's just a VHS tape in here! Record Keeper: Wow, you must be the life of the party, kid.

Happens again in "The Other Shore": Kat sees a tiny cell with a bound, unconscious prisoner while Annie sees a vast maze trapping a powerful opponent. Annie also sees a gigantic, terrifying insectoid thing that turns out to be Kat's Etherical form.

Ascetic Aesthetic: In Ch. 52, the room where Annie is apparently living now that she's being made to retake Year 9 is very sparsely furnished, undecorated, and everything appears to be a pale gray.

Boarding School: Gunnerkrigg students live at the Court in dormitories that change year to year. There have been skyscraper bunk beds, industrial pods, the interior of a water tank... it isn't until year 10 that they actually get normal-looking apartments.

The Forest and the Court don't exactly fit in normal reality. For one, the Court is an enormous city, with multiple parks, lakes, and power stations, but it's almost completely abandoned, and seemingly stretches on forever.

Samples this whenever the characters end up in Zimmingham, particularly in Chapter 28 (which has triggered so much Wild Mass Guessing and speculation among the fanbase that it can only be described as the Epileptic Trees equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion).

Wherever Antimony's dad actually was when he met the Psychopomps, it doesn't appear to be a normal location. He speculates that the region wasn't anywhere on Earth, and might not have even been a physical place.

Extranormal Institute: The Court. Virtually everyone inside it is some manner of bizarre, or related to people who are. There seem to be a few baseline Muggles but they typically have oddities in their jobs, like Eglamore being a Dragon Hunter.

Faceless Masses: Seen in the background from time to time and lampshaded in Chapter 59 when Annie, Parley, Red, and Ayilu infiltrate Jeanne's memories.

Annie: And Jeanne isn't going to notice these people don't have faces? Ayilu: Nah, background stuff is easy. The hard part is making her think she's talking to an old friend [ Parley ].

Frame Break: When Annie puts up a wall of flames between herself and the Court, it burns the panel dividers up. In Chapter 50, Coyote and Annie are in "ether-space" and Coyote goes just outside the normal edge of the page (presumably this means that in print normal pages would have a black border while Coyote would spill over to the edge of the page).

No Communities Were Harmed: Many of the Court's exterior shots and streets are modeled after Sidell's home city of Birmingham, England. In his video retrospectives, he's put up photos of specific places that he's transplanted into the comic.

The bridge to Gillitie Forest. It's wide enough to not be immediately dangerous unless people walking on it do something unusually stupid, but it does lack railings, since any shadow cast on it would allow the Glass-Eyed Men to cross it.

Scenery Porn: There are many aerial shots of the Court's geometric, sprawling urban environment, but also beautiful fields, the depths of Gillitie, and (in some chapters) quite impressive vistas of places elsewhere on Earth.

Spirit World: The Aether, which Annie enters when she uses her blinker stone.

Wizarding School: The court is a subversion. Even though magic occurs on school grounds, the court considers any and all phenomena as scientific.

The World Tree: A Cherry Tree (from Gillitie Woods) in the artificial habitat room; it is there Annie starts to open up to Kat. In "Divine" there is a callback to the tree as a place where Annie can put aside her "mask."

Wretched Hive: In the forest there are some ruins which mark the last human settlement on that side of the divide. Normal forest denizens never go there, and for good reason, since it's full of scary monsters who attack outsiders on sight.

Narrative / Themes

Abilene Paradox: As revealed in the chapter "See Ya!", Mort has been ready to pass on to the Ether, but lingers here as a ghost because he thinks it's a "pretty important" job that the Realm Of The Dead gave him. But the ROTD are really just giving Mort busywork because they think he wants to stay.

Aborted Arc: The paintings from Chapter 2: Schoolyard Myths, as seen in page 7 were supposed to be part of a sub plot, but Tom has since dropped the concept.

The tooth Coyote gave to Annie in Chapter 26: The Old Dog's Tricks. On Kat's official sharpness classification, said blade is "Really damn sharp", to the point of cutting a shadow from the floor. But it doesn't cut Shadow himself, fortunately for him.

Coyote: The keenest blade you will ever find! Be careful with it, because it could cut the very earth!

Jeanne, despite being a ghost, can make Clean Cuts through physical objects (like Kat's spy cameras) as well as etheric ones (like Annie's etheric form).

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The court robots start out quirky, but friendly and helpful. But with time, especially thanks to Seraph 13's rumor spreading, the robots grow increasingly unstable. They eventually even go so far as to isolate the students at sea, cut them off from outside help, and unleash some extremely dangerous etheric phenomena. All as part of a project to make a boat robot flesh in order to woo Lindsey, a — happily married — biological entity, as well as to motivate Kat.

Anti-Climax: At the end of Chapter 54 Antimony resolved to get Renard back from her father. It's clear that she had intended to make a big speech and to do about it, but he returns Renard as soon as she says "I want Renard back.", after which she's left speechless when Anthony asks if there was anything else she wanted. And this one page is the entirety of Chapter 55.

Coyote shows Annie three sides of Ysengrin: the psychotic wolf in wooden power-armor, the sickly animal underneath, and his "beautiful" form in the Aether. He tells Annie to decipher which version is which: how Ysengrin views himself, how others view him, and how he really is.

The Realm Of The Dead looks to Aetherical deadzone Kat like a cheap fun house stocked with office supplies and run by people in cheap costumes while to Annie and Mort it's a fantastical place with mystical tools and monstrous guardians. Turns out Kat's vision is correct, those in charge use the "spookshow" to comfort the ghosts who probably expected something more.

When Anthony returned to the Court he treated Annie terribly by forcing her to remove her makeup and humiliating her in front of the class; we later learn that when he first saw her in class he thought she was Surma (the "rough" picture of Annie has Surma's curly hair instead of Annie's straight hair) and just freaked out.

Anthony always stands ramrod straight and seems unflappable in public but in Coyote's version/vision of his visit to the Court to learn why Annie hasn't been to the Woods he looks like a hunchback and described as a "broken man", as Coyote can tell with a sniff the truth about his situation.

Fairies in the real world look like what we'd expect: a tiny flying humanoid (without wings, those are just accessories); in the Aether they look more like living constructions of light.

"She died and we did nothing." "The court grew from the seed Bismuth." "It was worth it."

Armour Piercing Question: Ysengrin delivers a blunt one when Annie solemnly tells him that her father has returned: "So?" Unusually for the trope, he then walks her through the answers to the question.

Bittersweet Ending: "Traveller". Paz's glass stone has been returned to her, in a better way than she remembered it, but she's still in mourning for the pup that swam away from her, to its death as she believes.

Red Eyes, Take Warning: Played straight with Robot: red eyes mean he's serious about putting a stop to you (green is normal and yellow is caution), subverted with Zimmy: being able to see her red eyes means everything is calm and under control, at least for a moment.

With the addition of Anthony Carver, arms and hands have also become significant motifs. He cuts off his own arm in a desperate attempt to see his wife again; later, Annie's other emotionally- and psychologically-damaged father-figure Ysengrin has his left arm scorched when he attempts to reintegrate Annie with her anger (it gets better). Reversed with Robot, who gets a biologically-inspired arm and all the Limb-Sensation Fascination that go with it.

One day I saw a pigeon fall from a tree, its body twisted and broken from an attack somewhere above. It writhed on the floor in silence and eventually died. It had no expression, just as I have no expression. I have never relayed this story to anyone.

Breaking the Fellowship: Surma, Anthony, Eglamore, Anja, Donald and (presumably) Brinnie were one inseparable company as students and perhaps for some time later, but before the story started, Surma left the Court and broke all contact with the rest except Anthony, and it's unknown yet when and where Brinnie has gone. Anthony confesses that when Surma discovered she was pregnant, she didn't want the baby to be born in the Court and didn't want her friends to see her waste away after the birth. Anthony only agreed after much reluctance and a Noodle Incident with Eglamore.

After the Wham Episode that was Chapter 39 with Coyote's "great secret", Ysengrin going batshit and the reveal that Coyote's been fucking around with his memories, "Mort Fun Time" was a welcome respite.

Chapter 50 is a breather about Annie delivering a totem to a lab and then returning to her new dorm. It's sandwiched between chapter 49, a grand end-of-year escapade with many characters involved, and chapter 51, a Wham Episode.

The arcs and chapters involving Red, the resident Comic ReliefCloud Cuckoolander, also work as breather and/or Bizarro Episodes. "Red's Friend Gets A Name Too I Suppose" starts out as a breather after the plot-heavy Wham Episodes of "Jeanne" and "The Other Shore", but is no longer one by the end.

Hyland Sr. and Surma. According to Jack, "Yeah, he said she was real nice."

In chapters 27 and 33, you can still see the fingerprint Annie left on the moon in ch. 20 thanks to Coyote. This particular one comes up quite a bit and its mentioned the Court is unaware of how the print got there (or least claims to be) and has employed a few specialists to study it.

An incredibly small but epically distanced one, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 30:

Both of Annie's parents: Annie's kind and loving mother was honey-trapping Rey which caused him to steal a man's body which killed him (evidently a mutual friend's) and her strong, intelligent father is capable both willful ignorance (completely dismissing the aetheric while working for an institute that studies it and living with people who utilize it) and weakness (being taken advantage of and bullied by various human and supernatural entities).

Bug Buzz: Appears and intensifies just before Zimmy can relax in a burst of real rainfall.

Bullying a Dragon: Subverted. Coyote appears to fly into a rage after Annie flicks his nose for being a prat, but it's just another one of his antics.

Chekhov's Gun: The incredibly metaphor-dense nature of some of the symbols makes a lot of future plot points hinted at way in advance of their actual usage.

The etheric scar which Annie received from Jeanne's sword in Chapter 8 has been repeatedly alluded to throughout the story, as it remains on her face, clearly visible to all etherically sensitive individuals. Its true significance still remains a mystery.

Before Jeanne and That Elf are sent to the Aether by Annie, Jeanne notices the scar, and wipes it away as if it were a smudge of dirt.

Eglamore handed Annie a beacon just in case she was ever in trouble while visiting the Wood. After being forgotten for about 19 chapters, she finally gets to use it.

The power buttons on top of the Seraph robots' heads. Loaded under everyone's noses all the way back on page 9 finally gets fired on page 1141.

Comically Missing the Point: Jones basically compliments Annie in this page by responding to a description of Shadow's friendliness and open-mindedness with "He sounds a little like you, Annie.", but Annie takes it literally.

The Conspiracy: The Court is highly secretive, has projects with creepy undertones suggesting hidden agendas, uses a lot of Sinister Surveillance, and experiments with the ether towards a mysterious goal. Eglamore states that the Court only lets you see what they want you to see, and hides behind bureaucracy to maintain plausible deniability.

Cringe Comedy: The strips of Jack trying to hit on Annie after he was freed from spider control were painfully awkward for the both of them and the audience.

Crossover Cosmology: Reynardine and Ysengrin are based off Reynaerde/Renard the fox and Ysengrimus the wolf, respectively, from Medieval European folklore tales like Reynard the Fox. Muut, Coyote, and the Glass-Eyed Men are from Native American myth. There's also several ghosts, fairies, and, for good measure, a flashback montage featuring every Psychopomp, ever. Chang'e, Brynhildr, and the Minotaur (of Chinese, Norse, and Greek mythology, respectively) have also made appearances.

Antimony: Coyote, can you tell me, what is Gunnerkrigg Court? Coyote: Why... It is man's endeavor to become God! How is that for an enigmatic answer? Ysengrin: Very enigmatic. It barely answers anything at all. Antimony: In fact, it raises more questions than before.

Curiosity Killed the Cast: Not the lethal kind, but there were rather close calls. Curiosity also starts several plots, and often proves helpful when combined with compassion.

Jones' way of dispelling fancy magic runes: crush the devices generating them in her indestructible hands. She later gets past a towering concrete wall, which Jack built a bridge over, by punching her way through it.

In one of Dr Disaster's simulations, Smitty finds the MacGuffin almost immediately because of his ability to create order.

After Anthony's callous treatment shocks Annie to the point that she seals her emotions inside her blinker stone, the next two chapters are an uneasy standoff among the main characters. Ysengrin then takes one look at her, brushes off her rationalizations, reminds her of what she's accomplished without her father, and shatters the stone.

Day in the Life: Played with in ch. 40, which, for several pages, is a series of past events in Jones' life, from the day before the first page's events to billions of years previous. Little's been revealed so far except that the next medium has been chosen, based on Jones' recommendation, the previously-hinted-at relationship between Jones and Eglamore has a lot of layers to it, and that Jones doesn't age, and part of her taking others' names is to keep this a secret. She also doesn't consider herself to be alive, and doesn't know what she is.

"Spacemonauts! The evil Enigmarons are threatening the Earth from their moon base on the moon!"

The creepy space aliens from outer space.

Discovering Your Own Dead Body: A variation: In the flashback to Mort's death, young Mort sees his own helmet, bloodied, while he's still wearing one.

Do Androids Dream?: The Court robots seem to have personalities and their own society out of sight of the humans, and they are explicitly trying to figure out their "purpose" beyond merely being custodians of the Court. One of the biggest questions they seek an answer to is why their creator, Diego, would engineer the death of someone he loved. They also think of Kat as an angel.

Downer Ending: Of "Red's Friend Gets A Name Too I Suppose" and Annie's friendship with Red and Ayilu. While she never raises her voice to Annie, Red is so upset that Annie almost got Ayilu killed that she tells her to never speak to her or Ayilu ever again. End of chapter.

Faustian Rebellion: Coyote doesn't even finish a sentence after granting Ysengrin his strength before being attacked.

Fling a Light into the Future: The original Magitec robots didn't have the means to reproduce, so they designed the modern court robots as their successors.

Flipping the Bird: Since he doesn't have fingers, Reynardine does the "up yours" equivalent to Annie for being put in timeout.

The Force: The Ether, which, like the Trope Namer, infuses all living things, can be directly harnessed only by a few humans, and bestows upon its users the abilities of telekinesis, clairvoyance, teleportation, flight, and superhuman speed and jumping abilities, and can even be used to create Magitek like 'etheric computers', which can project Deflector Shields or bind people/things if their users will it.

Friend Versus Lover: Antimony, Kat, Alistair. It shows up again when Annie runs off after seeing Kat and Paz together. Annie later explains that while she is genuinely happy for them, she's also afraid that she'll be left by the wayside. It might also show up for Zimmy, Gamma, and Jack, as Jack can now communicate to Gamma in Zimmy's world and Zimmy is fearful of both losing even a bit of Gamma's affections (they know Jack has a girlfriend) and accidentally hurting Jack again. Reinforced by a treatise which shows a triangle with the letters Zeta (Zimmy), Gamma, and Iota (I substitutes for J in Latin as anyone who's seen Indiana Jones knows).

The Glass-Eyed Men seem to be made of pure shadow, but Kat deduces that they're actually just very thin layer of matter that may as well be a layer of light. Or, you know, dark.

Harmony Versus Discipline: In just about every sense, from magic, nature, and world view, the Court and Gillitie woods are opposed. The Court favors rational methods, control, and gray expansive industrialization. The Wood represents nature, unbound and at times terrifying.

Hug and Comment: Chapter 32 ends with Annie and Kat hugging, and then Kat saying "Annie ... I love you and everything, so ... it is with love that I must inform you that you really gotta take a shower."

Paz: The Court isn't a big monster that does as it pleases. Es a collection of people, working to do what they think is right. And, over time, other people see what is wrong, what mistakes were made, and work hard to fix them.

Kat gets another one after her opinion about the Court changes in Chapter 29.

And once again, Annie and Kat have noticeably different hair after the summer holiday between chapters 31 and 32, Annie having grown hers longer than it ever was and begun to tie it back, and Kat having cut hers shorter than it ever was, accentuating the growing rift between them.

And even further in Chapter 51, where Annie cuts her hair short after complying with her father's demands. Chapter 52 reveals that in doing this she also cut herself off from her fire elemental side, and thus the bulk of her anger towards her father and her situation in general. PS She actually did a terrible job of cutting it and went to the barberbot to clean it up

Info Drop: This was standard practice in the early run. At the end of each chapter was a bonus page, giving details of the school and surrounding areas.

Insomnia Episode: Zimmy doesn't sleep. When infected with the spiders around Zimmy's mind, Jack Hyland also becomes sleepless for a short while, and gets more and more mentally unstable until Zimmy finally removes them.

Ironic Echo: Eglamore responds to the students' complaints about camping in the cold with "Good question. Night!" At the chapter's end, the sleeping arrangements have reversed, and Annie tells Eggers: "You know where the tents are. Night!"

Kick the Dog: In Chapter 31, Renardine and Annie get into a big fight where they just start kicking the crap out of each other. First, Renard dresses Annie down for cheating on her homework and goes on a tangent about how he would probably have been a better father than Anthony to Annie and that he is a Jerk Ass that doesn't care about anyone, the latter being a common but somewhat biased opinion of the man. Annie loses it at the jealous, protective fox and straight up tells him that her mom never loved him and that it was all a cruel trick to capture him which Anja very pointedly told her to keep secret. Renard, grief-stricken and infuriated (and unable to change into his more mature wolf form by Annie) then tells Annie that her birth is what killed her mother and that she had to take her to the afterlife because there was nothing left for the Guides to take. Annie breaks then and there and you can just see the guilt on Renard's face and Annie flees Gunnerkrigg in tears.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Coyote removes the memory of Ysengrin's insane attack on Antimony (and possibly more than that) from his mind, against his will. This apparently isn't the first time this has happened, by far.

Letter Motif: Gunnerkrigg, Gillitie, Good Hope: the letter G seems to be important. One wonders what this implies about Miss Gamma Czarnecki.

A Light in the Distance: Annie, lost and alone in the Annan gorge, sees a light on the opposite shore. It's Jeanne. Things don't go well.

Limited Wardrobe: Averted. The characters wear all kinds of clothes, appropriately to the situation. And the two female protagonists even change their hairstyle regularly.

Literal Metaphor: Both Renard and Coyote repeatedly told Annie almost word for word "You have a fire in you, fire that belonged to your mother". This turned out to be not a runaway compliment, but a fairly straightforward, concise and accurate statement.

Love Makes You Crazy, Evil, and Dumb: According to Something Awful's Gunnerkrigg thread a major theme (if not the theme) of the comic is "Love makes you do strange things":

Zimmy and Gamma: Zimmy declares she'd "kill the whole world and then herself" if Gamma asked. It's later revealed she deliberately mistranslates what people say to Gamma so they think they're insulting her so she won't become friends with other people (and also risk getting caught up in one of Zimmy's "episodes"). Zimmy later endures seasickness because Gamma wanted to go on a cruise.

Diego and Jeanne: Diego made countless robot "children" out of love for Jeanne, however she didn't like him that way and then rejected him so hard he concocted a plan to kill her and her lover and make her suffer at the bottom of a gorge for all time. Jeanne's ghost later attacks Parley because she's disgusted by Parley's "coward heart" — she's embarrassed to admit her love for Smitty (a year younger and a head shorter) while Jeanne, y'know, risked death and lost to be with her lover.

Reynardine: Fell in love with Surma and killed a man to be with her... too bad she was just honey-trapping him for the Court

The Carver family: Surma got pregnant even though she knew it would kill her; Tony put all his medical skills into saving Surma despite the fact that it was probably useless since her problem was aetherical; when Surma died Tony declared he had "killed" her and that Annie surely hated him for it (she didn't); he later went on a quest to see if he could just see Surma one more time and his ignorance almost cost Annie her life; the only reason he's alive is because the Court found him and forced him to return, and then only for Annie's sake; Annie remains loyal to her father and spurns anyone who dares question his years-long absence.

Annie and Jack: Annie plays hard to get but Jack takes her seriously and is actually relived because he doesn't want to deal with her baggage and he's actually in love/obsessed with Zimmy.

Jack and Jenny: Jenny is aware of Jack's feelings for Zimmy but she accepts it

Robot and Kat: Robot literally worships Kat and has built a cult around her and her abilities; he later risks the lives of everyone on the cruise ship and possibly reality just to get Kat thinking about her biological experiments again (he also happens to get the Seraphs bots who scrapped him "excommunicated", though he did warn them that could happen)

On a more positive note, Robot and Shadow: after hurting his new "biologic" arm Robot is ruminating on the new sensation he dubs "pain"; while he's doing this the comic panels get a red border which suddenly disappears the moment he sees Shadow.

Janet and Willy: Have been hiding their relationship for so long no one believes their sarcastic confession and for some reason (probably the fact that Janet's dad is the headmaster) they won't reveal themselves, and yet even Annie noticed they're always near each other and they once did a very long play about being married.

Ysengrin and Coyote: Ysengrin is completely loyal to Coyote in spite of the latter's abuse Coyote removing Ysengrin's memories of "acting out" also helps, though Ysengrin admits he hates Coyote sometimes.

Magic A Is Magic A: It's implied that all magic follows specific rules. So far, the best covered is Rey's Demonic Possession — e.g. he's able to occupy a toy simply because it has eyes.

Reynardine is also bound in the wolf toy and forced to obey Antimony because he chose to inhabit an item she possessed ownership of, which is why he hasn't just jumped to something else.

Also, when Coyote gives away a power, it gains a side effect it didn't have when Coyote had it, like Ysengrin's artificial tree-body and his atrophied real body, and the fact that if Renard takes over a body, it dies when he leaves and the original owner is extinguished when he enters. There's also the fact that any power Coyote gives, he can't use until he takes it back.

Mostly because their philosophical disagreement between their practitioners. Ironically, mixing the methodologies seems to bring the most impressive results and according to a history lesson by Jones may have been the Court's purpose in the first place.

Magitek: What happens when science and the etherical combine; interestingly this also describes certain couples:

Anja and Donald combine their powers to help the court. Interestingly their abilities are described with technological terms (IE the bindings they put on Rey are "programs" not "spells").

Paz (and City Face) inspires Kat to create bio-mechanical parts.

Jenny creates a "seeking spell" to guide Jack's drone.

Matricide: An interesting example, where Annie kills her mother without realizing it by simply being alive, due to them both being fire elementals. However, in chapter 36, her father is confirmed alive.

Coyote's "interesting thought experiment," as Jones calls it: Coyote says he put the stars in the sky. There are many other supernatural creatures from different human cultures who claim the same. Jones says the stars were in the sky before anything existed to put them there (and she would know, since she was there to see them while the Earth was still a ball of magma). None of these people are lying, and they're not mistaken either.

Mood Whiplash: Typically occurs for both the characters (i.e. as a narrative trope) and the readers at the same time. Best example so far is probably the scene where Ysengrin goes berserk and nearly kills Annie, and Coyote forcibly removes his memory of the incident. Next page, Mort Fun Time!

Mundane Utility: The blinker stones' amplifying powers have a wide variety of uses, including signal rocket and instant campfire; Annie has used hers as a torch and a psychic walkie-talkie, among other things. It also comes in handy for temporarily blinding Ysengrin when he's chasing her and Eglamore out of the forest.

Non-Answer: If you ask any of the court's residents how the court was built, they will just say that the founders made it. If you ask anyone else who might know, all they will say is that "It grew from the Seed Bismuth."

No-Sell: The Court's Seraph model robots are immune to electro-disruptors, a device Kat and her father have previously used to disable robots.

Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: After Paz tries unsuccessfully hitting on Matt and learns that he already likes Chang'e, Kat tries to comfort her, causing Paz to think she's being hit on. Kat says that that wasn't her intention, but then a somewhat interested Paz says that there's nothing wrong with that if that's what Kat was doing setting up Paz asking her out some time later.

Kat's father is very happy when he realizes that the coded message Antimony's father sent makes sense once you include him saying Antimony's name at the start, until he realizes the implications this has for an already upset Annie.

Ysengrin, after Antimony flicks Coyote's nose as her way of saying she won't tell him stories.

Our Demons Are Different: Reynardine and Zimmy were called demons at some point. No guarantee in the first case it was not a popular simplification, and the second was confirmed to be only an invective.

Our Dragons Are Different: Rogat Orjaks ("horned giant" in Slovenian) are explicitly stated to be dragon-kin, but not the same as "usual" dragons. One is quoted making a distinctly Take That! remark on the subject of "those [common dragons]".

Our Fairies Are Different: "Regional Fairies" are so-called because they have spots on their shoulders showing which "region" they're from. They learn little kinds of magic (like rusting metal) and are said to come of age when they make their own clothes. Red and Ayilu are the only ones introduced in the main story. Others appeared only after becoming humans, as students in the Foley house.

Fairies look very different in the Aether, going from a tiny floating humanoid to a... construction of light, limbs, and gossamer.

Our Ghosts Are Different: Mort, the Ghost with the Sword, the dead boy in the hospital, a blind man's ghost mentioned by Kat in her letters over the summer break, and the dead couple haunting the musical instruments are all different from each other. This will probably all be explained eventually. Maybe.

Turns out Red and Ayilu are different from other fairies: they're "hollow fairies" born with their souls almost completely separated from their bodies. This is somehow related to the Court's plans (it "wants what it wants") and presumably applies to all fairies who become human and join the Court.

Paper-Thin Disguise: Annie said she was clearly a robot. Just look at her antennae! And robots never lienote which isn't even true in this comic; robots are notorious Bad Liars, but they can, in fact, lie. But Annie asserts it and the robot she's speaking to simply agrees with her.

Pet the Dog: Ysengrin is the gruff, brutish and misanthropic wolf who ferociously guards the Gillittie Woods. But every now and then he is genuinely kind towards Annie - albeit in his rather gruff way.

Powered by a Forsaken Child: The chasm dividing the Court from the forest is guarded, on the Court's side, by a ghostly woman, who Annie learns early on is Barred from the Afterlife for initially unknown reasons. In chapter 25, it's revealed that she was a founding member of the Court, who the other founders sacrificed in some sort of ritual after she spurned one of them for an elf from the forest. It gets worse in chapter 30, when a flashback explains the details of her death: she was sent down into the chasm, forced to watch her lover get shot, then was left to die of starvation and exposure. The Despair Event Horizon she crossed is the source of her power, and the reason why she can't leave.

Prosthetic Limb Reveal: When Antimony's father Anthony finally appears in person after years of absence, Annie is shocked to discover that one of the things that's changed about him is a prosthetic right hand, which she hadn't noticed until she spoke to him in private. He shuts down her attempts to question him about it immediately after.

The biggest one though, in chapter 43, answered a question that had been around since almost the beginning of the comic, that is, that Renard actually did try to possess Annie knowing full well it would kill her. Something he horribly regrets.

Robot Antennae: Antimony invokes this trope by wearing a headband with false star-shaped antennae so she could sneak into an area restricted only to robots. The robot guard is completely fooled by her Paper-Thin Disguise; ironically most of the actual robots don't have antennae.

Shadow Archetype: The recurring theme of duality in the narrative makes this fairly common in both characters and other elements of the world, though it's sometimes difficult to tell who or what the 'shadow' is.

Shrouded in Myth: "Chapter 48: Tall Tales" starts with two Gilitie Woods-dwellers talking about the amazing accomplishments of Annie and Smitty, the new mediums, before their "proper" introductions to the Woods.

Signs of Disrepair: John and Margo, looking for a replacement mandolin, came across a closet marked :Cursed instruments.

Sinister Surveillance: The court keeps its students constantly tracked with supplements in their food. Anthony himself attempts to escape the court's eye, and expresses despondence at how the court was able to find him regardless and probably knew what he was doing all along. When he and Donald hold a private conversation, he has to take measures to ensure they are unable to eavesdrop.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Red gives a light, if devastating, one to Annie in Chapter 61, following the events of the previous chapter, pointing out her selfish actions nearly getting both her friend and Smitty killed, and how she essentially coerced Red's friend down there by promising her a name, something important to faeries, but almost entirely inconsequential to humans. She ends it by saying that Annie should never try to talk to them again.

A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: In response to her father's return and his increasingly Jerk Ass-ish behavior, Annie, rather than at least try to deal with her anger and sadness, or perhaps seek consolation and advice from a sympathetic party, instead chooses to follow the advice of Ysengrin, whose sanity is questionable at the best of times, and uses her etheric powers to remove her negative emotions entirely and manifest them into a separate entity.

Training "Accident": Parodied in Chapter 24, in which the teachers take the class on a deliberately hellish camping trip from which pupils are intermittently abducted. The pupils very rapidly work out what's going on and rebel successfully against the teachers, occupying the farmhouse and making the teachers sleep in the cold tents.

Traumatic Haircut: Annie cuts her hair in Chapter 51, rather than it having been forced on her, as she seems to be experiencing some difficulty in controlling her emotions in response to her father's return, so she uses her etheric powers to cut her hair and remove her emotions at the same time.

Kat: You're not supposed to have short hair! You're supposed to have long hair! I'm the one with short hair!

Trickster Mentor: Seems to be the Court's established modus operandi, at least to a degree: it's the playground for the individual initiative, even if it's occasionally acting "against" the rules or teachers. The unwritten rules seem to include "It's your project, tell me when you finish it" and "Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught". They also teach reasonable level of cooperation.

They have security measures clearly designed to provide a reasonable level of challenge for students inevitably bypassing them, such as obvious and regularly hacked motion detectors, or security robots that we saw circumvented with tricks, hacking and plain outrunning — compare this to their outrageously advanced and subtle technologies like the tracking system.

Ysengrin tells Annie what Jones is — or tries to. It occurs off-panel and Annie does not elaborate. Subverted when she directly asks Jones, who summarizes her 4.6-billion-year existence, then double subverts it by admitting that she herself does not know what she is.

Weaksauce Weakness: The Court's Seraph model robots are capable of flight, very capable in combat, immune to electro-disrupters, and can be turned off just by pressing a big red button on the top of their heads.

Chapter 51. When Kat meets up with Annie again, Annie has short hair and is dressed like she did in the hospital.

When Kat, Parley, and Smitty sneak into Anthony's house, there's a subtle but extremely important difference about Reynard's body. Specifically, the symbol on his forehead, indicating Kat is now in control.

Chapter 52's last page shows that Annie had been talking to her own elemental form, which is now separate from her.

Chapter 59 has Jeanne skewering Ayilu through the forehead. As it turns out, Jeanne hit her illusory self, and in reality she was fine.

Chapter 63 has Annie walking in on Kat and Anthony talking and laughing together.

Chapter 64 has Surma cheating on Eglamore by climbing into Tony's lap and kissing him.

Later, Jack delivers one when Annie tries to set him up for heartbreak to hurt him for something he did while he was possessed and thus had no control over.

Another one with Annie on the receiving end, from Red this time, after her plan to free Jeanne's spirit from the binding keeping her in the Annan Gorge nearly gets Ayilu and Smitty killed, puts Parley in real danger. It starts on page 11 of Chapter 61. It goes on for four or five pages.

The Foley students are used as living data crunchers by the Court and in at least one case a major rite of passage into adulthood, being named, is done in a very off-hand manner. Since they can have fun in the aether while their bodies do all the work and they have a radically different outlook than humans they seem to be unaware of any differences between them and the human students.

Coyote: Oh, but shouldn't you be helping Ysengrin? He's not as spry as he used to be. Antimony: How could I possibly help against these monsters? I'm supposed to be a diplomat! Coyote: Haha! So start speaking their language!

Ambiguously Evil: The Court as a whole, big time. The Court has a history of dog kicking that goes back as far as its founding, and for all the talk of cooperation with the denizens of the Woods, it becomes clear that little if any of it is sincere. The Court also shows an unnerving level of willingness to manipulate or actively impair those in its employ for its own ends. Sir Eglamore does not trust his own employers and says that they hide behind bureaucracy to maintain plausible deniability. That being said, the current membership is much less extreme than the founders were and many of them to strive to do their jobs as intended rather than as the Court itself wants them to.

Beware the Silly Ones: The Court robots seem silly and simple, but then they start worshiping Kat (to a level she isn't aware of), and try to force her to make the cruise ship's AI flesh so it can be with Lindsey, the giant inter-dimensional Cosmic Horror crustacean — who's already happily married, and using Zimmy to alter reality to make it happen.

Big Guy, Little Guy/Fat and Skinny: The two ghosts unleashed by John and Margo. The male is short and fat, the female is tall and thin; unfortunately they don't get much characterization other than they're terrifying and in love and just want someone to finish their song.

The way Red talks to her (nameless) friend from the forest before she's named.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Court founders passed themselves off as noble men forced by necessity to do horrendous things in the course of their work but they reveal themselves as almost ingrained xenophobes that thought nothing of doing these things. The one member that wasn't like this was consigned to a slow and miserable death just so they could have an efficient security guard to keep the Court and Gillitie Woods as separate as possible. The Court as it currently exists seems better due to several members actually striving to do their jobs in the spirit they were intended and the more ambiguous situations faced but ultimately reveal themselves as just less blatantly obvious in Chapter 53 where it is revealed that they brought back Annie's Disappeared Dad to rein her in for "transgressions" that include actually improving overall relations between the Court and the Woods.

The Blank: The Nobodies; the cruise ship's sailor-bots, who are the Hive Mind of the ship itself.

Blue and Orange Morality: Annie and Kat ran into this trying to reconcile two ex-fairies. According to the fairies, mutual understanding and respect are not the most important things for choosing your friends, it's cool hair. Later it turns out that once reconciled, these two taunt each other and fight all the time. Other Foley kids merely see it as a sign of strong attachment.

Coyote's etheric form is a terror to behold. When Antimony first uses her blinker stone in his presence, the sight of it is enough to temporarily disorient her. Combined with his godlike powers and Blue and Orange Morality, he's easily the closest thing that the webcomic has to a true Eldritch Abomination.

Generation Xerox: Subverted when appears. This generation of protagonists are descended from parents who were also adventure buddies back in the day — but the two generations are different in just as many ways as they are alike.

Directly defied by Mr. Donlan to Antimony eventually. Antimony for one is glad to be treated as her own person instead of her parent's child, especially soon after this got more unsettling.

Gentle Giant: Quite a few, such as Lindsey the giant crab. In fact, it's almost a reliable guarantee that the bigger and more intimidating someone (or something) is, the nicer they're going to turn out to be. Eventually lampshaded.

The Foley kids are completely unaware they're being used as living data crunchers by the court because they can have fun in the aether while their bodies do all the work.

Humans Through Alien Eyes: On Andrew's first trip into the forest, he meets a Chickcharney who has lost a treasure he received long ago. A "shining sphere of unmelting ice! Trapped inside were brilliant colours from the rarest flowers". Andrew immediately produces a marble. "Did it look like this?"

Male Might, Female Finesse: Gender-flipped: Andrew is a laid-back guy who uses his powers of probability manipulation to provide support for Parley, a Lad-ette with a longsword, Super Strength, and Teleport Spam abilities.

No Antagonist: The comic presents many opportunities for villains to cause mayhem, but they either never act out on it or are revealed to be misunderstood good guys.

No-Sell: Metaphorical version: <Snuffle> the fairy isn't intimidated by the Court's sinister-looking decontamination unit, is impressed by the Court's architecture for about two seconds before she declares it "kind of crummy", and agrees with Bugsy the ex-fairy teacher that "they aren't too smart around here" because they can't even remember people's names, "like how they call me Ms. Bugsy when my name is Bugsy".

Suspiciously Specific Denial: This appears to be the only way robots understand deception. They feel the need to explain exactly what it is that isn't happening.

Teens Are Short: Many commenters for Chpt. 52, pg. 16 noted that Kat and Annie are in their mid-teens but appear to be (perspective and stairs aside) barely shoulder-height to Kat's dad and Annie's. The rest of Annie's friends don't look much taller aside from Parley, Jack, and the elves from "Annie in the Forest" who seem to be analogous to college students.

As of "Get It Together" it looks like the guys have finally gotten a growth spurt.

What Happened to the Mouse?: Aside from a flashback, Zimmy has been completely absent from the story since Chapter 49. Gamma, Jack, and Jenny have been completely absent since Chapter 49. Jones was absent from Chapter 42 to Chapter 67, over four years in real life.

Art Evolution: Tom is consistently evolving his art. It's most noticeable in Annie's case: Compare her design on page 18 with her design on page 435 (which, incidentally, is a Flash Back to the same scene from page 18). Now compare with page 1148.

It's even lampshaded in this strip, which refers back to an earlier incident in which Annie tricked a group of robots by disguising herself as a robot. The robots have drawn a Wanted poster of the unknown "robot", complete with football-shaped head. (One possible explanation is that the changes in art style reflect actual changes as Annie matures physically.)

Call-Back: The events of "Divine" are referenced 14 chapters later in "The Tree": Anthony has a cut on his lip that seems to correspond to where Zimmy hit him with a psychic punch; the "bone spikes" which resembled finger bones (Anthony's right arm is obscured by a bright light in "Divine" and his right hand appears to have been replaced by a prosthetic in "The Tree") that pinned down Annie's ethereal half seem to show up when Annie calms herself down and puts on a mask-like expression so she won't "break down like a complete fool" after being given a dressing-down by her father for extensive cheating (Annie was in the hospital in "Divine" some time after hearing her father's voice for the first time in two years).

"Annie and the Fire" is not just the Mind Screwdriver for "Divine" (or at least parts of it the "bone spikes" were indeed Anthony's — he claimed some psychopomps tricked him into using his hand to make an "antennae" so he could see Surma again but failed to mention that Surma was now part of Annie; fortunately Zimmy's "message" came through. The similar-looking lines in "The Tree" were just "pain lines" to show how stressed Annie was) but also answers questions from "The Tree" what happened to his hand and "Sneak" Why didn't anyone know about Annie until she came to school (Surma didn't want Gunnerkrigg to know about her) and what he was doing since Surma died (trying to find answers by looking for psychopomps).

"A Ghost Story" is also referenced when Annie cuts her hair short and wears a simple blue dress, same as her appearance at Good Hope Hospital "back when she still knew how to be a kid".

Annie politely refusing a refreshment from one of the elves in "A Big Day" is one to "Annie in the Forest" when she got drunk on achewater.

Judging by Eglamore's outfit, the scene in "Get Lost" where Surma breaks up with him takes place the same day as the scene where he discusses the break-up with Jones in "The Stone", over twenty chapters prior.

Deliberate Values Dissonance: Used to comedic effect between the friendships of humans and the friendships of fairies. Also pointed out to be a dominant cause for the strained relationship of the court and the woods.

Early Installment Weirdness: Mechanically unskilled Antimony building a robot (since Retconned), Basil the Minotaur living in the Court's basement, Zimmy willingly partaking to a large gathering of people with no visible signs of discomfort, and many other instances conflict with the setting and the characters of later chapters.

Fan Vid: Broad Spectrum Studios are currently producing a voiced dub of the comics. Although the addition of voices and sound effects is a nice touch, perhaps the most notable feature of the dub is the surprisingly fitting original music score by Neil Lee Griffin. After watching a few of the existing episodes, you may find yourself humming the Court Theme throughout the comic.

Girl-on-Girl Is Hot: Invoked by Reynardine when Kat and Antinomy are having a heartwarming moment. Plot point, too, because it's the reason Antimony orders him not to speak until she commands it, which prevents him from warning her in time when he realizes something's wrong.

Chapter 30: The Coward Heart goes from being reasonably upbeat, to horrifying revelations about a character's death, then the same character trying to kill the protagonists... and finally then ends with two characters admitting their love for each other.

Chapter 39: The Great Secret - From silly (fun times with Coyote!) to Wham Line ( the aether is human imagination!) to scary ( berserk Ysengrin!) to Wham Episode ( Coyote eats Ysengrin's memories to make him loyal!) and finishing off with MORT FUN TIME.

Chapter 49: The Torn Sea - Yay vacation cruise! No, Jack and Zimmy (and Gama, whew) are here! Yay, fun dance party! No, the robots want Kat to make them flesh, they even stole her latest prototype! Wait, the ship itself wants Kat to make it flesh — because it's in love with Lindsey! What the EFF and they're gonna use Zimmy's reality-warping powers to do it?! What the Christ and then the Seraphs duct tape hardhats to their heads because they remember Annie's mystical power button pressing powers...

Chapter 52: Sneak - It's revealed at the end that ( the 'sneak' is possibly the fire elemental part of her, in anguish), and the page directly after that revelation is nothing but an incredibly cute puppy Renard.

Chapter 60: The Other Shore Part 2 - Jeanne and her boyfriend are free! But Smitty gets stabbed and Annie hesitates to save him because she doesn't want to pay the Guides' price. Kat thinks the Guides are being ungrateful that Annie and a bunch of mortals had to do a job supernatural beings couldn't do; the Guides point out that Annie put a lot of people in danger but agree to save Smitty in exchange for something from Annie. The stinger shows that Coyote is aware that something has changed and he's very happy about it!

Chapter 61: Red's Friend Gets A Name Too I Suppose - Red's friend gets a name! And Red cuts Annie out of her and her friend Ayilu's lives after Red agrees with the Guides and, as usual, Annie can't come up with a good response.

In a hilariously roundabout way, Antimony and Mort's experience in the Realm of the Dead. To ether-attuned beings like Antimony or Mort, the Realm of the Dead is (apparently) a vast labyrinth, Final Records is a huge, many-roomed library, the Scryer is a complex magical artifact, the Vault of Memories is just that, a vault, and the Records Keeper is a massive and horrifying creature who is practically invisible. To the technically-minded Kat (whose point of view we actually see), the Realm of the Dead is a tacky cardboard haunted house, Final Records is a closet with a single book sitting on a shelf, the Scryer is a Rolodex, the Vault of Memories is a cabinet with a single VHS tape inside, and the Records Keeper is a human guy in a black cloak that has the price tag on it wearing a dimestore Halloween costume glove who sticks out like a sore thumb.

Names To Run Away From Very Fast: The Omega Device, a mysterious project of the Court. All we know about it is Anthony was able to travel around the world under the guise of researching it and Donny was uncomfortable about Annie hearing about it while she listened in with the blinker stone (it was Donny's idea as this was probably the only way Annie would hear the truth from her tightly closed-off father).

Narrator: Two of them, Annie for the main story and Tea for bonus pages and announcements from Tom.

Never Trust a Title: Chapter 34: Faraway Morning (And Three Short Tales), where some characters tell three short tales. Sounds like a short chapter, right? It's the longest chapter to date thanks to all of the Character Development and plot revelations going on between each of the tales.

Odd-Shaped Panel: Pages where Annie looks into the ether tend to have no panels borders at all. Even more trippy is when the etheric forms of characters themselves become the panel borders. Annie's flowing red hair goes from one "panel" to another, reconnecting with her head multiple times one one page. In "Fire Spike", the perspective starts to warp after The Reveal, in order to convey Annie's Heroic B.S.O.D.. In Chapter 51 the art becomes "jangly" and sketchy and the panels become unaligned after Anthony orders her to wash off her "ridiculous" makeup.

O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Chapter 59 is completely rant-free on Tom's part. Said chapter involves probably the most dangerous things Annie and the others have done to date, namely finally trying to free Jeanne's lover from being trapped at the river bottom and, hopefully, give Jeanne the impetus to go on to the afterlife.

Tom's comments below each comic sometimes are variations of Epileptic Trees, the line "Oh. It's that guy." or "[Obvious event in-comic]! ([Obvious event in-comic])". Or explaining who is/isn't Mr. Eglamore. When Trees Attack, "Eglamore looks pretty different. (This was a joke, that is not Mr. Eglamore)". When the Minotaur returns, "It's this guy! (It's Basil, not Eglamore)". At one point in a flashback between Eglamore and Jones, the page caption was, "Reassuring?". Everyone in the comments demanded to know who the strange man on this page was.

The fans even get in on this. Whenever a new character shows up, someone comments on how different Mr. Eglamore looks on that page. To date, he has been "mistaken" for a sentient crustacean, an elf like forest dweller, a Canvey Island monster, and a perky goth girl (who no one could have possibly mistaken for Zimmy).

If Jones keeps beeping like that people are going to get the wrong idea.

Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The general mentality of the leadership of the Court. It becomes increasingly obvious that the Court gets away with less than moral acts and escapes the possibility of punishment for it by merit of being the only authority in the area.

Shown Their Work: Attention to fine details in itself became yet another layer of fun. If something looks dubious, usually this get fixed by more research on the viewer's part. Mongolian draw and archery bracers? Baby pigeons◊? Canine skulls? Moon pools? A girl musses her hair up after removing the hair tie? Check-check-check...

Generally, anything involving Coyote, the fairies, the court robots, and Dr. Disaster are on the silly side. Anything involving the psychopomps, the founding of the Court, Zimmy and Gamma, and Antimony's father are treated very seriously.

A very subtle one. One of the strips is just a random collection of real photos. One of the pictures is of a mineral called Stibnite (it's easily identifiable by it's bladed crystal habit). Not only is that briefly mentioned as Surma's maiden name at one point, there's also the fact that the mineral contains an element that isn't found in many minerals; Antimony.

The Laser Cows all have a serial number that starts with LC. Elsie is a popular cow's name, thanks to being the name of the mascot of the Borden Dairy Company since the 1930s.

This◊, directed at someone who complained that the flashbacks weren't made obvious enough. There were a few "helpful" notes for those who get disoriented by the Art Evolution, take jokes too literally or both at once.

Tom's◊reaction to a weekend of speculation that Jones is a robot, months after Reynardine told Annie that she isn't.

Bugsy was bestowed the job of teacher (reading textbooks aloud and writing the contents on a blackboard) by the Court because she had no real skills. Granted, teaching Foley House is more like a vacation if you're an ex-Gilitie Woods person who can astral project and do whatever you want in the aether (in Bugsy's case it's napping).

Viewers Are Geniuses: It helps a lot that the forum community is comprised of readers from all over the world (some of the most frequent posters are from places like Russia, France, Spain, and Alaska) and so most mythology symbols, folk songs, and bilingual bonuses can frequently be first noticed/explained by a native of the region in question.

There was one instance when the fandom (using a bare minimum of information) figured out that Brinnie's "Old Man" is Odin from Norse Mythology, and shortly after, that Brinnie herself is Brynhild the valkyrie. The full extent of the information they had? Brinnie is Scandinavian, and she uses triangles in her magic.

Less than a day of this page going up and people wondering whether the girl was Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, a bunch of posters on the Gunnerkrigg forum immediately identified her from Chinese mythology.

People immediately recognized this symbol as a Valknut, a symbol of oaths/promises (which is appropriate, since Annie is promised that he will come to save her).

Many commentators for this page noted that "bunny boy" and his fairy friend <Snuffle> aren't just good with Rubik Cube patterns, they're geniuses, especially <Snuffle> since she has never seen one before.

What Does She See in Him?: Renard and Eglamore are both very open in their confusion and annoyance about what Surma ever saw in Tony. While people badmouthing her father was a Berserk Button throughout the comic for Annie, it turns out she privately thought the exact same thing once he came back to the Court.

Zig-Zagging Trope: Sivo is a case of a triple subversion of the Knight vs. Dragon story.

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